


Black dogs (Adam said indulgently)

by staringatafterimages



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam <3 <3 <3, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Polyamory, Teen Angst, like at all, op kinning adam too hard, the gangsey gets a dog, these are my characters now margaret
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27808405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatafterimages/pseuds/staringatafterimages
Summary: The gang finds a dog outside of Nino's. This is an excuse for me to talk about Adam Parrish and also dogs and also polyamory. Remember when tumblr was all about queerplatonic relationships? I miss that. Let's all be friends with heavy romantic tension.This is literally just self indulgence, just like all my other fics. Hope you enjoy.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, theyre a poly fuck you
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. Blue

**Author's Note:**

> alyosha i did this 4 u

Unfortunately, the story has to start at Nino’s. 

Nino’s looks and smells and feels like every other pizza place in the world. The lamps don’t make the place brighter so much as they make it more orange, the air is sticky with grease and soda, and the night always looks different through the windows, cut across with neon. Deeper, heavier. The night held so much and Blue Sargent was walled in by bricks and tacky decor. An all-American Cask of Amontillado. 

She didn’t even have the luxury of sighing and wishing her life was less ordinary, because she lived with psychics and searched for dead kings and dogged the steps of the rarest of raven boys. Blue’s life was extraordinary, and even still she had to listen to the same crazy haired woman complain about her steak and cheese sub every Tuesday. It’s a common misconception that living in a town where magic hums beneath your feet means you don’t have to be sixteen.

Closing time was a blessing. The air outside was cool and misty. Not enough to remove the grease from her pours, but enough to make taking out the trash feel like a break. She made to toss the bag up and into the dumpster but stopped at the sound of movement. She grabbed for her pink switchblade, thinking of zombies and assassins and rabid raccoons, in that order.

But it was just a dog. Probably. It was dog-shaped, if you were being generous. It stood at about the height of her knee, with messy black fur and pointy ears. Mostly it looked like Matted Fur and Scared. Blue slowly put her knife away and set the trash bag down, kneeling as she did. She didn’t know much about dogs, but animals generally liked it when you weren’t big and sharp.

The dog thrummed with nervous energy, eyeing the odiferous trash bag with desire. It looked like it couldn’t decide on a mode of operation, limbs twitching with the intent to run and nose twitching with the intent to eat. Anxiety and hunger all balled up in some ancestral keening toward companionship. It reminded her of a boy she knew.

Blue cut open the trash bag and slowly backed away, smiling as the dog glanced back at her once, twice, before diving in and finishing what Aglionby’s best and brightest left behind. She sighed and called Gansey.


	2. Gansey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive had bitchin camaro stuck in my head all day

Because he was Gansey, and because it was Henrietta, it had to be an omen.

The Pig tumbled towards its destination. It was a night like every teenager waits for; a girl and his friends and a pizza place after hours, some new mystery in the shape of a black dog. Adam and Ronan bickered over the radio. Adam had been better lately—still tired, still quick to snap, but less like he was teetering on the edge. They weren’t fighting, which was nice. They weren’t _not_ fighting, exactly. An argument from two nights past still stuck to the Pig’s leather seats. But the arguments were starting to feel different. Between everyone. Less about what was being said and more about what wasn’t.

He was close to asking Adam to move into Monmouth again. It never went well, any time he asked, but he couldn’t stop trying. He had to dig up the right words to make it sound the way he meant it.

“Put on the one Cheng showed us,” Ronan said.

Adam’s smile was striking. It wasn’t sharp, like Ronan’s, but it was just as deadly in the right light. Some weapon from Clue that you wouldn’t expect. A candlestick, a wrench. He put on some ironic punk rock song. Adam and Ronan howled along to it. It became very clear Gansey was being made fun of.

_Bitchin' Camaro, bitchin' Camaro!  
I ran over my neighbors  
Bitchin' Camaro, bitchin' Camaro!  
Now I'm in all the papers_

_I ran over some old lady  
One night at the county fair  
And I didn't get arrested  
Because my dad's the mayor_

Gansey turned the radio down. “I miss when you just played bad electronica.”

“Fuck you, Dick, 100 gecs is art,” Ronan barked.

At Nino’s the boys spilled out of the car. Gansey tried not to look too excited. Blue had _called him_. She held a finger to her lips and guided them out back, where a raven-black hound ate nervously—more nervous, now, at the sight of them. Its tail would be curly and fluffed if it got a bath. Its hunched and distrustful demeanor would be pitiable if it didn’t look quite so much like a wolf’s shadow.

“Yep,” Ronan said. “That sure is a dog.”

Adam elbowed him. “Is it a _black dog_ , or just--?”

The question was a good one; one Gansey had not even considered. Only two things had registered in his mind, and that was _Blue_ and _black dog_. It had not occurred to him that this dog might just be a dog, and not a spectral guide of lost travelers. And it certainly did not seem like a portent of death and evil. “Well, it’s eyes don’t look very…glowing. I’m not actually sure how to tell. I assumed we would just _know_.”

“I should point out that we didn’t figure out Noah was a ghost for a very long time,” Adam said.

Ronan snorted.

Blue rolled her eyes. “Honestly, guys, I don’t care what it is, I just didn’t want to get rabies by myself. I want to figure out if it’s got a collar.”

Gansey took two chivalrous steps forward and the dog wheeled around, baring his teeth. Adam caught him by the arm and pulled him back. Gansey’s laugh was a special kind, reserved for genuine surprise. Despite the circumstances, he felt nostalgic. The messy black hair, the sudden snap of teeth, the lingering smell of Nino’s—it felt like the first time he met Blue.

“I don’t think it likes you,” Ronan provided.

Adam huffed, hunkering down to sit on the pavement. “You’re going to scare it, walking right up like that. You have to let it come to you.”

They all sat and waited. Eventually, it started snuffling in their direction, timidly taking a few steps forward at a time.

Gansey suddenly understood something about Adam.


	3. Ronan

It took almost an hour, but eventually the dog felt secure enough to creep up to Adam. Ronan held his breath as Adam slowly reached his arm out, thinking about how long it takes to get to the nearest hospital, thinking about how many EpiPen’s he made for Gansey and wondering if they worked on rabies, thinking about reaching toward something soft and sharp all at once, thinking about being soft and sharp and being reached out to. The dog sniffed at Adam’s hand and tucked his head under it. Asking to be loved, despite the earlier snarl.

“Watch out for fleas,” Ronan griped.

Adam cast a sidelong glance his way and rolled his eyes.

Ronan liked dogs. He liked animals with teeth and claws, animals that are nice when you’re nice and aren’t afraid to bite when you’re not. It was why he liked Blue. It was why he liked Adam. But he was too tied up in his grief to feel any love without also feeling heartbreak. He thought of teaching the dog to herd cattle, running with him through the fields, and wanted to punch a hole in the wall.

“What should we name him?” Blue asked, feeding the dog a piece of pizza crust.

“Dog,” Ronan suggested.

“Black dogs are sometimes called Church Grims. I kind of like Grim,” Gansey said, ignoring Ronan. “C’mere Grim.” The first and second tries were a bit too gentle, a bit too soft. Blue smirked as the dog ignored Gansey in favor of sniffing her greasy shirt. Then, the third time, he huffed and said, “Come here, Grim,” his voice suddenly different, and the dog, chewed up ears high and alert, padded over to him and sat down.

Gansey looked bewildered, gingerly scratching the underside of Grim’s chin. “Well, alright.”

“You’re gonna make Ronan jealous,” Adam quipped, a wry smile on his face.

In the mess of Ronan’s life, a strong sense of morality kept him centered. His primary tenet was never to lie. So he said nothing.

That Grim would live at Monmouth didn’t need to be said, though both Blue and Adam were loathe to part with the dog, and the dog was loathe to part with them. Grim stuck so close to Adam that he seemed ready to sneak him into St. Agnes by the end of it. But they got Grim back to the ancient building, and he only peed on Gansey’s Henrietta replica a little. He tried to herd Noah a lot.

Ronan pat the dog when he came near, but for the most part stayed reserved in front of the others. However, in the dead of night, in a fit of insomnia, he took Grim out for a walk and starting training him in Latin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god sorry this is so short but i didnt actually expect people to read this and i wasnt ready to be expected to , finish,,, it. i will try tho . anyways i have a rly good idea for a ghost hunter au that i'll never finish


End file.
